


Honking Nightmare

by DerekWilliams



Category: Homestuck, Humanstuck - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:12:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DerekWilliams/pseuds/DerekWilliams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They honestly think I did it. They honesty believe I fucking did it! How could I? How could I make all this shit up? What-did I just sit here at my computer four hours upon hours typing out a long fucking story to try and explain everything that happened? Who the fuck would do such a thing?! This story is fucking true, and none of those  fucking assholes believe me! I know what I fucking saw! I know what’s really responsible! He’s still out there! But no one believes me…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Starts: 1

**Author's Note:**

> Creepypasta! Yay!   
> Please do enjoy.

They honestly think I did it. They honestybelieve I **fucking did it!** How could I? How could I make all this shit up? What-did I just sit here at my computer four hours upon hours typing out a long fucking story to try and explain everything that happened? Who the fuck do would such a thing?! This story is fucking true, and none of those fucking assholles believe me! I know what I fucking saw! I know what’s really responsible! He’s still out there! But **no** one believes me…

It was a mistake, a really stupid mistake. I never should have agreed to watch that damn thing! If I’d known what was going to happen, I would have burned it-threw it in the furnace! Then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here in this ward waiting for my god damn court day. Maybe-maybe-maybe I should take a deep breath and explain. *deep breath*

My name is Karkat, Karkat Vantas, and this is my last attempt to tell the truth and pray to whatever god up there that someone believes me. Right now I’m sitting in my room in the psychiatric warm in the hospital. I’m labeled as a ‘mentally unstable’ and I’m about to taken to court in the next few days. I have a limited time with this laptop before my older brother comes to pick it up, so I really need to make this count.

A little more than a year ago, in September, it was my freshman year in college. I was an average student. I had an ‘A’, ‘B’ average, nothing special. We had midterms that week and I was studying under a maple tree. The cool air was crisp and the sounds of other students and leaves rustled and crackled about. I liked the quiet, surreal setting around that tree. It was the perfect place for opening any book and letting your mind focus on any task-mine was sociology-what could be better?

“Pumpkin Spicthed coffee with coffee cake muffin?” Sollux Captor, best fucking friend and boyfriend on the planet He smiled down at me as he sat beside me baring the coffee shop special. It would be a little cliché of me to say that he was sweet, but hell, he was. If you looked up perfect guy in the dictionary, Sollux’s face was right there. Nicely groomed hair, perfect hazel eyes; I was in love with this guy. I smiled accepting his gifts as he leaned forward and kissed me. To think that I’ve sent two years of my life with this guy. He was an absolute dork, ever since I met him at homecoming junior year. My god, those plaid pants -where the fuck did he even find them? Were they even legal to wear anymore? Anyway I’m getting off topic.

He kissed me; I smiled and said ‘thanks’. “Free for a while?” I asked. He nodded as he adjusted his scarf. “Good. Sociology.” I handed him (more like threw) my book along with my notes. “What the hell is going on here?” With a roll of his eyes, Sollux removed his bicolored glasses and went on to explain to me the thing I had been trying to figure out of about a week now. My professor was a good teacher, but the her manner of speaking and way of teaching was like one really big fucking riddle and I was always left spinning in circles. But Sollux had the class last year so he was able to help me figure out the massive puzzle the professor left me with. Did I mention this guy was perfect?

“Get it?” He asked as I scribbled something down on the paper.

“I guess. It’s as good as it’s going to get.” I mumbled. I started packing my things, giving up for the day. It was getting colder out, and coffee can only stay soo hot for soo long. “She said the test was going to be on chapters one through four mostly, and I understand most of that, so I’m good, I guess.” With my backpack secured, I stood up, taking Sollux’s hand.

“Alright, but don’t try and cram it all in one night.” He warned pulling his glasses back on. I never understood why he wore those things. “You’ll only hurt your performance on the test.” Says the nerd.

We walked back to our dorm where our friends were waiting. It was study night. The six of us had this thing where we found out that ranting about our work, tests, and professors really helped us on tests and shit. It was fucking amazing. The first time we had a study meeting, no one really studied. We all just argued on how pointless the work load was and why we needed to learn anything, and when test day came, we all did pretty well, so we kept it up. It’s been working fairly well. As we walk into the lobby, we find our group in the corner by one of the many collections of TVs and computers. John was on the couch flipping through channels, up-side-down like a moron, Kanaya was sipping tea while Terezi ranted on about something to do with her law class. I noticed Jade wasn’t there. It was odd for her to be late. These whole study sessions were her I idea to begin with.

“Heyyyy~there’s the happy couple!” John smiled as I sat down by him on the couch. I swear-I could punch this guy. Egbert was, and will probably always be, my best friend. He’s the only one I can watch cheesy romantic shit with and do stupid things with. In high school, we were always playing harmless pranks, John being the real mastermind and me being the muscle, but after getting to college, we learned real fast not to play games with the upper classmen. “Just coming in from a lovely romantic stroll?”

“Did you just come in from an ever so pleasant fuck you?” John narrowed his eyes, and I narrowed mine back.

“Well Shorty McShort-Short, aren’t we a little crappy today?”

“Oh like I haven’t heard that a million times, Four Eyes.” Our banter continued as Sollux retreated to go and talk to Kanaya and Terezi. The girls were laughing about some bullshit involving me and John being an old married couple, which sparked a whole new argument over something stupid. I can’t recall who said what, but I do remember Jade running into the room, panting and her think black hair more of a mess than usual. 

“Sorry I’m late, but I had a slight problem getting here.” She panted holding onto her knees. Kanaya handed Jade her bottle of water and made her sit down to catch her breath. “I had to take the long way. I noticed Dave and Rose and decided to go around them.” We all went silent.

Now let me explain something. We didn’t go silent because these were like, campus officials or anything and we did something wrong and were going to get in trouble, no. Dave and Rose were just two really creepy kids who never seemed to get the message to leave us alone. Dave Strider and Rose LaLonde were the school’s two freaky twins! They weren’t really twins, but they acted the same, looked the same, and even dressed the same. Dave always wore a suit, either pure white or pure black. His pale blond hair was always neat and perfectly combed back out of his face and his stupid sunglasses covering up his eyes. This wouldn’t be so weird if he didn’t carry around a black umbrella all the damn time. He carried that thing everywhere, even if it wasn’t raining. Rose, on the other hand, was always seen dressed in a black or white dress while her pale blond hair was held nicely in place with a light purple head band. Her freaky attribute was a stuffed clown doll she referred to as Gamzee and was never seen without it. That doll, it gives me a headache just thinking about it. That blasted-fucking-The two were always seen together, were seldom seen apart, and rarely seen on campus. Nobody liked to talk about them and did everything they could to avoid them. Kinda makes you wonder how they did in their classes.

Yeah, so case in point, they were really weird-like some big mysterious thing with no explanation at all. And if you tried to figure them out, you wouldn’t get any answers. I guess you could say they were basically blacklisted, but even then, you might be able to find something, but with these two, it was nothing-like they didn't exist. 

I looked over at Jade with a somewhat irritated look. “What the fuck could they want this time?” She shrugs as she sits down next to John. Like I said, the twins were seldom seen. The _only_ time I, or we, ever saw them was when we were all grouped together like this hanging out. And every single fucking time something bad would happen. So it was only natural that we were weary.

I sat there just staring at the TV when Sollux hastily got up from his spot at the table with Kanaya and Terezi. He grabbed my wrist pulling me up from the couch asking to speak with me. He pulled me over to a more isolated spot in the hall. I was stuffed into a corner next to the stairs with Sollux towering over me. “Thisth can’t be good.” He whispered. “The last time we talked with thosthe freaksth, you and I were nearly arrested.” It had something to with trespassing, getting into a fight, wrong place, wrong time, all that bullshit-not going into it. See, Sollux really hated Strider and LaLonde. I guess it was because they mostly targeted me, and he was just being protective, but who can say? “So maybe, if we justh go up to our room we can-” I caught a glimpse of blond and black in my eye and had to shut him up with a kiss. Even without looking I could see his eye brows darting up in approval. This was something we typically did when we wanted people to just leave us alone. Your really want them to piss off, start grinding and make it awkward. It works really well, just not with our friends or the person in particular I was trying to avoid. 

Sollux breaks the kiss when he is tapped on the shoulder by none other than Rose. “Afternoon, gentlemen.” Her voice is sweet. Her eyes are gentle. she's basically a living doll-almost like a little girl. She was fairly short and her face was child-like. But she acted soo much older. Pretty damn creepy.

“Oh, um, hi, Rosthe.” Sollux greeted her as politely as he could. “Look, I’m really sthorry, but I’m kinda busthy at the moment. Could you come back later?” He turned back around to continue our previous actions.

“Oh, but this will only take a moment of Karkat’s time.” She insists. Sollux sighs as he slowly steps aside letting me move past him. I greet Rose. She’s wearing her usual black dress and like always, that damn doll is in her arms. She smiles warmly enough though slipping her arm through mine pulling me down the hall away from Sollux. That must have made his blood boil. “How have you been Karkat? No trouble I hope.”

“Not since the last time we talked.” I kept my face neutral.

“That’s good. Listen, I need you to do me a favor.” And it starts. “Dave and I have to visit someone-a mutual friend who needs some help-and Gamzee here doesn’t want to go.” She pets the head of her doll like it a bunny or something. “Can you watch him for me?”

“Wait-what?!” I eyed her carefully. “You want me to babysit your doll?”

Her eye twitched a bit. “Yes. You see, Gamzee’s a special case and needs to be watched over to make sure he stays out of trouble or just doesn’t cause too much trouble. It’ll only be for a little bit. Please, can you do it Karkat? You’re the only one I trust to do it.” She started to make a pouty face, which I have to admit, is my onl weak spot, especially with girls. I looked back at the doll in her hands. What harm could one little thing of fabric and stuffing do? I could watch a doll.

“There isn’t a hidden camera in there that’s set to record me and Sollux having sex is there?” Rose giggled as she handed me her doll.

“No, no. That’s Dave’s thing.” She sighs with a smile, stroking her doll’s face. “Now you be good for Karkat. Don’t cause too much havoc.” She looks back up to me with a slight dim expression. “Thank you again Karkat. I’ll see you both soon.” I nodded as she turned away to meet up with Dave. He looked back at me briefly before disappearing with Rose to who knows where.

Sollux placed an arm around my shoulder asking what that was all about. I looked down at the thing I was holding narrowing my eyes. “She wants me to babysit her doll...” Sollux looked just as confused as I did. Without another question, we rejoined our group. But shortly after, Sollux had to leave to get to class with Kanaya and Jade, leaving me, John, and Terezi alone with Rose’s freaky doll. I dropped it on the couch as I walked over to the table to start on some of my work for my other classes. John and Terezi did the same, but our attention continued to travel back to the thing on the couch. I gave up on trying to ignore it and told John to throw it over to me. He did and I started turning this thing upside down, right, left, and every which way to try and debunk what was so special about this thing and where the hell LaLonde found such a shitty thing. “Where the fuck did she find this?”

“An old style carnival maybe.” Terezi answered in her raspy voice dropping her pencil. “Here, let me see.” She fixed her glasses on her face and examined the doll. Terezi was studying to be a detective, like her father and older sister; though I think her sister went off to be a lawyer instead. Terezi poked at every inch of the doll from its pair of orange horns that stuck out from its black mass of hair, orange button eyes, eerie clown make up, and old, brown fabric of skin to try and debunck it. “Yeah, I’d say she, or one of her grandparents maybe, got this from a carnival. But I can’t say for sure. The stitching’s worn and there isn’t a tag anywhere.”

It made sense at the time, but later I’d learn the truth of where she got that doll. I took it back from Terezi giving it one final look over. I pressed a little tightly on it and it honked. Then I looked over at John; he was just staring at the news report. He was fairly quiet, a little too quiet for him, but oh well. “And knowing her, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s what happened.” I nodded and placed the doll back on the couch returning to my work…

After dinner, Sollux and I returned to our room. It had been… an interesting afternoon. I looked around for a place to safely keep our ‘guest’ till Rose came back and picked him up. I was thinking about leaving him down stairs, but people have been known to sleep on that couch, and I didn’t want to give some poor horny assholes a heart attack. I was at a loss where to put it. The desk was in view of the bed and I wasn’t going to have his thing staring at me while I was with Sollux. The night stand was out of the question, and I wasn’t going to bother making room in the closet. I sighed and just dropped it at the end of my bed on top of some books. It should be safe there. With that out of the way, I turned to Sollux. He was lying in bed with his eyes closed and shirt off. He must have been tired. Oh fucking well, I wanted some sex, and I’d be damned if denied that right. So I straddled his waist, removed my shirt and got down to business. Just how I love it…

It was late, very late, when I was woken out of bed by a blood curling scream. Now, I lived in a dorm full of jocks and some pretty other tuff, strong guys, and there is no way that kind of scream should be heard. I groaned as I shift my way out of bed, careful not to wake Sollux. I found a pair of pants to slip on as I looked out into the hall. Nothing was out there. It could have just been my imagination, right? So I decided to just go back to sleep when I heard footsteps approaching. It sounded like someone was running and in a hurry. I rubbed my eyes as I yawned before I was knocked down to the ground, the air kicked out of my lungs. I look up to see John in front of me fixing his glasses. “Egbert? What the-do you have any fucking clue what time it is?”

He didn’t seem to hear me. His eyes were wide and scared, his face was white, and I would bet all of his hair was standing on end. Scared shitless, he looked over his shoulder before standing up and pulling me into my room. The light flickered on after he slammed and lock the door. I could only watch as John took a few steps back collapsing to the floor shacking and crying. “What’sth wrong with him?” Sollux asked yawning.

“I don’t know?” I squatted down patting John’s head. “I heard John scream and went to see what was going on. He ran into me and came in here. Something must have really scared him.” John just nodded, shaking. “Want to talk about it?” John shook his head biting his lip.

Sollux groaned falling back onto the bed. “John, do you want me to walk you back to your room?” John’s head shot up and he hastily shook it no.

“Please don’t make me go back there! It-it-it’s-!” Something really got him good. I looked over at Sollux who only looked irritated. He didn't like being woken up in the middle of the night any more than I did. Looked back at John and tears were streaming down his face. I sighed. 

“Fine, then just stay here tonight.” I said getting up and walking back over to my bed. I hate being woken up from sleep. John didn’t argue as he curled into the spare bed.

“Um, can you leave the light on?” He asked as Sollux reached to turn it off. Sollux shrugged and just turned around wrapping his arm around my chest after I kicked off the pants. Clothes can be fairly restricting while sleeping. I pretty much when right back to sleep after that…

Later, I was woken up, yet again, but this time, it was a bad dream. It was about Kanaya. She was in trouble. She was running from-from-from this thing with gross pale skin, messy, thick-black hair, fangs, and claws. It didn’t look human, but still looked human at the same time. It was tall and bone thin. It was chasing her. It growled with every swipe of its claws and snarled when it missed her. Kanaya kept running and dodging until it had her trapped in a corner. When it finally had her cornered, it just... grossly smiled at her showing all of its sharp plaque-stained teeth. It roared one final time as it lunged at her. Kanaya screamed-and that’s when I woke up, covered in sweat and breathing hard. I looked over at John; he was still sound asleep. Then I looked at the alarm clock: 6:48 A.M.-just before dawn. I groaned as I fell back into bed.. Something wasn't sitting right in my stomach. Like something bad was about to happen, but I couldn't pin-point what...

So when we woke up the next morning, John looked like shit and Sollux looked like he really wanted to shove his dick in my ass, but with John being there, he wouldn’t. Sollux had to be one of the more polite members of our group, besides Kanaya. He held doors open for people, helped professors with some kind of bullshit. Stuff like that. Anyway, so the three of us woke up and decided that after that night, we should all go to the coffee shop to get breakfast. Really it was mine and John’s idea, but hell, Sollux was there. I called Terezi to tell her to get Jade and Kanaya to go as well. She was excited and told me to be there in fifteen minutes or else, and or else meant that we had to pay for them as well. So we all got dress-John borrowing my clothes-and headed over.

We got to the coffee shop first, ordered our food and drinks, and found a table. “Stho John.” Sollux started as John bit into his breakfast sandwich. “What happened last night? Why were you running around screaming like a girl?” John gulped. The look on his face was worry. His hands started shaking and his eyes darted out towards the window. “John?”

“Huh?” He asked nervous. Sollux and I shared a look.

“Egbert, what the hell is wrong with you?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but I think someone’s watching or following me.”

“Stho sthalking you?” Sollux asked sipping his coffee.

“Sure, if you want to call it that.” John placed down his sandwich and sighed. “Last night I was just lying in bed trying to sleep. That’s when I started hearing noises outside my door, and with my room right next to the lobby, I figured it was just some guy trying to get lucky. So I poked my head out of my door to ask them to try and quiet down. But nothing was there. I even walked out into the lobby to make sure. Nothing was there. I just shrugged it off and went back into my room.” John paused to take a sip of his coffee. “So as I’m trying to fall asleep, I hear noises again. So naturally, I get up to go tell whoever it was to just shut up or go make noise somewhere else, and again, _no one_ was there. I was really freaking out at that point!”

“Ok, stho some douthe bags were making noisthe and scaring you. Big deal.” Sollux took a bite of his sandwich.

“Upper classmen pranking the prank master!” I chuckled. Sollux joined, but John just shook his head.

“Believe me, I would love to believe that, but that’s not all that happened.” John readjusted his glasses. “After I found nothing again, I just decided to go back to sleep and ignore whatever or whoever it was when they decided to make noise again. But when I turned around…” He squeezed his eyes shut slamming his elbows onto the table ramming the butts of his hands into his temples. He began shaking his head constantly repeating no in a whisper.

“John, snap out of it.” Sollux snapped his fingers and John seemed to relax. To this day, I still have no fucking clue how Sollux did that. It was a little trick he picked up from his father who used it on his psych patients. “Now calm down and just tell us what you saw.”

John sighed and nodded. “After I turned around, I bumped into someone. I quickly apologized and tried to make my way around him, but…” He gulped. “I don’t know. The next thing I knew was that I was sitting on the ground… a shadow was looming over me… I just had to get out of there. That’s when I ran up to your room last night…” His story was a little iffy, but John didn’t lie, so I believed him. Then there was Sollux.

Sollux sighed resting his arm on the table while sipping his coffee. “Just a really bad prank. It’sth alomost October stho college shenanigans are going to be at an all-time high.  And with that sthunt you pulled the first week, it only stheems fitting you’d be targeted.” Sollux, it was always logic with this guy. But he did have a point. See, John pulled this really awesome prank out first week here. He placed laundry soap packets inside the shower heads causing a really big soapy mess. He then covered the towels in itching and sneezing powder. It took a while for people to figure out who did it, and since then, many had tried to get John back for it; they failed, but never gave up. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so, so it only made sense.

“But-” John’s voice was quiet. “There was something very familiar about that thing. I just can’t place what…” Sollux just rolled his eyes and stared out the window. He could be soo thick sometimes.

“Egbert, whatever it was, don’t worry about it.” I said pulling out my phone. “You’ll only hurt your think pan.” I looked at my phone. It was Terezi. I wondered why she was calling. Weren’t she and the girls on their way? I hit the answer button. “Hey, where are you?”

“There’s been an incident!” She sounded winded and panicked. “You guys need to come over here right now!”

“Terezi, is everything alright? What happened?”

“It’s Kanaya. Just get over here now!” I could hear the tears in her voice.

“Alright, alright, we’re on our way.”

“Hurry.” I hung up collecting my cup.

“Come on. We need to go.” I stood up.

“What, why? Aren’t the girlsth on their way?” Sollux asked following my actions, and then followed by John.

“Something’s wrong with Kanaya. Terezi sounds frantic.” Without another word, we hurried out of the shop over to Kanaya’s dorm. We were horrified by what we saw. There were a handful of cop cars and an ambulance all gathered around the enterance of the dorm. I found Terezi on the ground in front of a handful of people. I pushed my way through and squatted down next to her. Kanaya was lying in a stretcher on the ground. Her eye was swollen and black and she was covered in a bunch of cuts and bruises. “What the fuck happened?” I asked looking at Terezi. Sollux and John moved over to talk to Jade.

Terezi shook her head and shrugged. “I have no idea. Jade and I found her like this when we came to get her. Well, the police were here before hand, but you get what I’m saying.” She held onto Kanaya’s hand. Soon she was picked up and loaded into the ambulance.

The five of us just sat there and watched as she was driven away to the hospital. Questions started racing through my mind. The same questions that I was sure were running through everyone else’s. What happened? Who could have done this? Why her? Little did I know that all the answers would be staring me in the face soon enough…


	2. Chapter 2

We all sat in the library. Not saying anything… hardly even daring to breath. After Kanaya was driven off to the hospital, an officer asked the five of us some standard questions: who we were, what was our connection to Kanaya, where we were the night before, did we know of anyone who would do this to her. All that stuff. We all answered honestly and after he got what he needed, the officer let us go. After that we all headed over to the library to try and distract ourselves with work. It wasn’t working well, and no one wanted to admit it either.

Pencil scratching.

Keyboard tapping.

Page turning.

Clocking ticking.

Any other time these noises can be ignored, but when something is pressing on your nerves, it’s hard to. It irritates you; picks at every nerve and fiber of you mind. Anything making you feel anxious only gets worse, like waiting for the results of some medical test and not knowing whether or not you’re going to live or die or what. All of this must having been taxing on John because he quickly shot up from his chair and collected his things. “I’m going back to my room.” We all turned our gazes towards him. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but John seemed… how should I put it? He didn’t seem right—not like the usual bubbly, buck-toothed dufus that likes really shitty movies and shit self. Ok? His eyes were shallow and pale and normally they’re deep and rich. His hands were a little shaky as he collected his things and small beads of sweat were resting on his forehead.

Of course I was worried… and also kinda hungry. “I’ll go back with you.” I proceeded to collect my bag and started tossing in my books. “Maybe grab a bite on the way?”

“Yeah! Yeah… sure.” An awkward smile formed on his face. We waved to our group ‘goodbye’ as we left. John was quiet the whole walk back. I offered to get him a sandwich on the way, but claimed he wasn’t hungry. I didn’t pay any more attention to him than I needed to. He was nervous; almost like he was about to have a panic attack. Which he was entitled to, I mean… all the shit that just happened in less than twenty-four hours.

After reaching our dorm, we sat down in our usual hangout spot and John grabbed the remote after plopping down on the couch and started flipping through channels. After finishing my sandwich and throwing away the paper, I plopped back down on the couch next to him, snatching the remote settling on The Hub. I don’t want to hear your bullshit—that channel is awesome, so shut the fuck up! John didn’t complain. He just kicked off his shoes and leaned back into the couch while hugging a pillow.

While Rarity was being all dramatic about being a big sister, I looked over at John. “What do you think happened last night?” I figured now was as good a time as any to ask. Enough time had pass to where any chance of getting some answers was possible; especially since John has had a few hours to **not** act like a total spaz queen like his cousin and calmed the fuck down. His defenses were down and he was relaxed. Truth of the matter was, I just wanted to rule anything and everything out. Just mark it as a huge, dumbass prank gone horribly wrong. But with John acting like a two-year-old about to piss his pants and my dream… something just didn’t _feel_ right. I really, really, _really_ wanted all of this just to be one big ass joke, as horrible as that sounds, but something told me different.

“Karkat, I really don’t want to talk about this.” He sighed, pushing up his glasses as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we just settle on that it was a bunch of assholes having their version of fun? Ha, ha, ha! They sure got me good last night. Ha, ha!” John shook his head. “Just drop it, ok?” I nodded. I could have pushed, but I didn’t. I just placed my hand on John’s knee and nodded.

Whether John was upset about Kanaya or what happened to him I’ve never actually found out. But I should have cared more…

\---

Later, I decided to change my clothes and just relax for the rest of the night. I wasn’t going anywhere and sure as hell wasn’t doing anything. John decided to join me. We grabbed our things and headed up stairs. After a few steps, we, but primarily me, stopped in front of John’s door. “You get changed. I’ll meet you back down here.” I ordered like always, pointing this way and that at my directions. As I turn around to head for the stairs, John grabs my wrist.

“…I really don’t want to go in there.” He whispered anxiously. Normally, this would be the part where I tell him to man the fuck up and let his balls drops for once, but considering last night, I didn’t. But he had to go back to his room at some point. I mean—do you have any idea how awkward it is trying to be intimate with a spare person in the **same** room? Especially when that romantic partner is Sollux Captor?! It took him nearly three months to get comfortable with the idea of having his father was just down the hall from his room. So, needless to say, having John spend any more time in our room, more than one night, would be a fairly big inconvenience. And believe me, I’ll be damned if I shall be denied my sexual rights!

“Fine.” Groaning, I dipped into my pocket pulling out my ring of dorm keys, because everyone trusted me with their spares for some Jegus fuck reason. “I’ll go in for you.” John made a weird high pitched gasping noise and reached out to try to prevent me from opening in the door. My key turned in the lock and the door magically opened before he could stop me, and while I rolled my eyes, I stepped inside and rested my hands on my hips as I did a look around. John peeked in from behind the door frame, like the little lost dog that he was or could be at times. Confident that my examination was correct and nothing was out of John’s regular bullshit, I turned tilling my head at him. “See, nothing’s in here. It’s just a messy room Sollux would have a fit being in.” John wasn’t the most organized guy; he basically just threw his clothes anywhere and where they landed was where they stayed till laundry day. Whereas Sollux, with a case of OCD, had to make sure everything was neat, organized, and perfect; so long as he didn’t see the mess, he was fine.

“You really need to man the fuck up, John, and maybe clean up a bit... Then you’d see that there’s nothing in here.” I said with my arms held out. “See? Nothing.”

Yeah, I was kinda being a jerk, but I had my reasons.  See, sex… it’s a fragile, delicate, and very private matter. And like I explained before, having John stay in mine and Sollux’s room would be a **major** inconvenience. To put it simply, without going into a very long and exhausting explanation, sex makes Karkat happy. Without it, I get very grouchy and irritated… more so than usual. And I’ll be fucking damned if I’m denied my sexual rights!!!

Sheepishly, John reenters his room, eyes wide and his being shaped like a cat expecting to be jumped, scanning the messy living space. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, John relaxed and sat down on his bed; it seemed like a really big weight was lifted off his shoulders. He dropped off his things, changed and met me up in my room a while later, after I change, before heading back down stairs to just watch lame movies…

Later, despite the whole me changing into my pajamas and wanting to really stay in the dorm, our gang decided to meet up for dinner at a local Asian place with amazing sushi; it was our regular group outing evening. After we got to the restaurant and found our seats, Jade announced that Kanaya was going to be fine.

“She’s really shaken up about the whole thing though.” Jade sighed while fixing her glasses. “She has a bunch of scratches and burses, but she’ll be ok.”

“Well that’sth good.” Sollux said taking a shot of sake.

Everyone nodded agreeing. “But her parents are worried…” Everyone went quiet as Jade continued. “She seemed to be having a really bad nightmare before she woke up. She kept mumbling and crying about... ‘that clown— that wicked evil clown’.” I don’t really remember why, but at the word ‘clown’, I instantly thought of the doll I had sitting at the foot of my bed. The damn thing had its face painted like the sick freaks in those old shows didn’t it? Like a weird clown for those old circuses?

Clatter

My head whipped over in John’s direction. He had dropped the chop sticks he was playing with… all the color was drained in his face. He was frozen, his hand twitching, and eyes wide and fawn-like. I glanced over the others before looking back at him. I lowered my voice. “John, were the douche bags that scared you dressed as clowns?” he slowly nodded.

…

“Well, then it all makes sensthe.” Sollux said. “One of the guysth that pranked you also went after Kanaya. She justh happened to be at the wrong place and he wrong time.” Well, that’s Sollux for you, always coming to a logical conclusion. After scaring the piss out of John, the jerk went out to do something else; saw Kanaya out on a run and decided to scare her too. But something goes horribly wrong and a then they flee, leaving her to her own defenses. Sure, it made sense, if you over looked the time gap. And then there was the dream I had. Maybe I was looking into this too much. Sollux was right. It was all just a matter of a prank gone wrong. Nothing else. But I couldn’t just brush this away. I needed to talk to him about this—but later.

When our orders came, we all just ate, changing the conversation to something about local gossip. It was a nice distraction, though you could still feel the setting of uneasiness in the air…

When we got back to our dorms, it was dark. Just as a precaution, we three guys walked Jade and Terezi back to their dorm. If some serial rapist was out and about, I dare him to mess with Sollux. He wasn’t the biggest and buffest of guys, but he knew how to render anyone to tears. It’s kinda scary really. And John… I knew he was just itching to punch someone in the face with all his frustration. Anyway, we walked them back to their dorm, the girls wished us good night, and we headed back to our dorm.

We stopped by John’s room to drop him off before Sollux and I headed off for our own.  Before we spilt, John whispered, “I really do not want to go back in there…”

“What?” I snapped.

“Look, I know everything seemed alright earlier, but it’s dark now! And I was gone for some time… Something could have happened!” John reasoned pointing at his door.

Sollux groaned pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, Egbert. A once in a blue moon sthleepover isth fine, but back-to-back? It ain’t happening.” Sollux said. “You’re nineteen-yearsth-old. You shouldn’t need Karkat or I to hold your hand while you sthleep at night. Nothing isth going to happen.”

“And what if something does, Sollux? You saw Kanaya!”

“Oh my fucking god-! That wasth a completely different sthituation!” Sollux shouted irritated. “She wasth outsthide in the open. You’ll be insthide, snugged in your bed, sthound a sthleep!”

“WILL YOU TWO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP?!” These two arguing was the equivalent to nails on a chock board! Had been since they met. Both had their points to counter the other’s argument, and though I’d love to see the outcome of this match, I was too tired to put up with it. “Look, I’ll just stay with Egbert tonight, just to **prove** nothing is wrong, ok?”

Sollux didn’t seem to sure. I didn’t know it then, but Sollux was very cautious about me being alone with John, and I didn’t know why either. He always was the protective type…

“Fine. I’ll sthee you in the morning.” He leaned down and kissed me goodnight. He ascended the stairs as John and I entered John’s messy room.

I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my shirt as John changed his clothes. I plopped down on his spare bed and closed my eyes. It wasn’t long before we were both asleep…

Morning came and I swear, I was going to throw something at John. Not for any particular reason other than I felt like it. And the fact that he was too much of a morning person might have had something to do with it. Especially for a fucking college student! He greets me with his usual buck toothed grin. And me, not being a morning person, felt the great need to throw a shoe or something at his face. I groaned as I kicked off my blankets and stood up to locate my pants. I needed a shower. One, because of the boner I was bound to have in a few minutes, and two, I was just sweaty. John’s blankets were hot, and he’s one of those weird people that don’t sleep with sheets on his bed. I left John to his own defenses to go up to my room for a few things, before heading off for a nice cool shower, and to make sure Sollux wasn’t too cranky. But, when I opened the door, something felt.. off.

Sollux was sitting on our bed. His hair was messier than usual, he was really sweaty, and for whatever fucking reason he was holding that strange doll. He didn’t seem to notice me walk in or me standing in front of him. Sollux’s full glare was transfixed right at the thing he was clutching in his hands. “Sol?”

He snapped out of whatever trance he was in, looking up at me. “KK…” He whispered before he stood up and wrapped his arms around me tightly dropping the damn thing. This wasn’t like him though. I nuzzled my head into his shoulder trying to comfort him. He was really shaken up: heart racing and breathing uneasy. Don’t get me started on his shaking.

“Hey, hey...” I cooed pulling away. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

Sollux shook his head, a few drops of sweat flying from his hair. “Nothing… justh… a bad dream.” He sighed. “All that talk about clownsth last night must have really gotten to me. I thought…” He looked down at the doll lying by our feet. “I thought that I saw that one.”

I narrowed my eyes as I picked up the dumb thing. Something about it felt different. Like the other day, it just felt like a lifeless thing that was easy to ignore; you could just throw it into a toy box and forget about it for five years, but now… it almost left alive. Its button eyes seemed to be staring back at me in the most unsettling manor. I’m pretty sure it was smiling too, now that I think about it. I let out a breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” I walked over to the closet and opened the door. Don’t ask how, but I magically found a space on the top shelf and threw the thing up there practically slamming the doors closed. “We’re going to pretend that this thing doesn’t exist. It’ll stay in the closet till LaLonde comes back and gets it. Ok?” I asked stepping over and taking Sollux’s face in my hands. “Now let’s go get a shower. You could really use one.” He nodded as he kissed me…

 “Kanaya’s fine. But she’s still having nightmares.” Jade said as she bit down into a chip. “All about clowns and ghosts none the less.” It was just another day after class where we all decided to just sit around and hang out.

I turned to look at Sollux. Something about the way he was staring blankly at whatever he was doing just… I don’t know. But I knew I had to say something about what I thought was going on. “Hey um… listen.” Everyone turned to look at me. “The night… the night John was pranked, I had a really weird dream…”

“About?” Sollux asked perking up a bit.

“I honestly don’t know. But Kanaya was in it, and she got hurt.” Things went quiet again. “She was out running, then she was attacked by a ‘clown’ I guess. I honestly don’t know.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t after you saw her?” Terezi asked. “I mean, unless you’re psychic or something, wouldn’t seeing Kanaya first make you have strange dreams?”

“Yeah, usually.” Sollux answered.

“I’m pretty sure. It was right after we went back to bed with John and his bullshit.” God, just speaking about was haunting. I wasn’t as asked as I was getting pissed off. Questions started racing: could I have done something, should I have said something, why the **fuck** did she have to go out at **that** time of night?!

“Everything isth going to be fine.” Sollux said rubbing my back.

“Speaking of Egbert… Where is he?” Terezi asked looking around the group. We all did a brief head count. One. Two. Three. Four…

Where was Egbert?

Quickly, Jade whips out her phone to call her brain dead cousin. It was a long pause, but her face lights up when he finally answers. “John! Where are y-?” She went still. Jade’s expression started to change—from glee into worry. Her eyes were wide, her face going pale, and hands starting to shake. Her whole back was stiff. Few things ever made Jade really worried. Whatever that brainless douche was saying to her really must have been bad. When she finally hung up, she rushed out of the dorm lobby. Sollux, Terezi, and I shared a look before chasing after her. Jade had rushed over to our dorm and over to John’s room. She threw open the door and John was nowhere in sight.

Jade was tearing John’s room apart. She threw around all his clothes left on the floor, she crawled on the floor looking under the beds, and dug through the closet to try and find something. I could only assume it was anything to do with what John had told her on the phone. When I actually got to the room, I nearly tripped over the pile Jade had somehow managed to make by the door. “Jade? What’s wrong?” Sollux and Terezi were soon after me.  

“John-!” She panted. “He didn’t sound right. Something seemed really off!”

I walked over to her by the closet and placed my hands on her arms pulling her away from her search to calm her down. “Alright, alright. Harley, relax. Breathe.” She took a deep breath before letting it all out. “We’ll spilt up and look for him. He’s probably off doing something stupid.” I said pulling her out of the room. “Sollux, check the bathrooms. Jade, his class rooms. Terezi, the library. I’ll go see about out hang outs. If we can’t find him in an hour, we’ll meet by the tree. Got it?” Everyone nodded and we split. Sure, it was a bit extreme, but anything to calm Jade down. She had always been over protective of her cousin ever since I’ve known her. And Jade wouldn’t relax till she knew John was safe and sound. However, after like fifteen minutes, I just gave up and went back to the dorm to wait. If John was really in his right mind, he’d have to come back to his room at some point. I plopped down on the couch and blew my bangs out of my face closing my eyes before grabbing the remote to turn on the TV. Just after that, my phone starting ringing. Figured they find him in no time.

BRAINLESS FUCK FACE

I cocked an eyebrow. Why was John calling me? I made a weird confused face at the screen before answering. “Hey, Fuckass. Where are you?” I grumbled.

“Hee hee hee.” John giggled. The fuck? “Hey, KarKitty~!” I was going to strangle this prick.

“The **fuck** did I say about calling me **that**?!” I shouted. I hated that nick name. It wasn’t cute in grade school, and I sure as fuck didn’t find it cute now. “You know I hate that name.”

“But it’s soo cute!” He giggled again. At this point, my face was twitching into a sneer. “Anyway, what are you doing?”

“WAITING FOR YOUR FUCKING DUMB ASS TO GET BACK SO YOU CAN TELL JADE TO CALM HER FUCKING TITS!” That only seemed to make John laugh, but not his usual, every day, nerdy, I’m-a-big-fucking-dufus laugh. It was… creepy, skin crawling, like a child’s laugh. I felt a tickle crawl up my back and every hair on my being stand up. “John, where the fuck are you?”

He laughed again. “I’m upstairs, dummy, waiting for you to come and play with me~!”

At this point, I was already standing up and heading over towards the stairs. “I swear to fucking god, Egbert. If this is a prank, I’m going to string your neck.”

“No worries Kitty~! I’m not going anywhere.” There was a mirth in his voice, along with some foreboding. Knots started twisting in my stomach as I climbed each step. “Kitty, what kind of games do you want to play? Hide-and-Seek? Tag? Patty Cake? What kind? What kind?!” His voice grew more and creepier as I got closer to my door. I slowly reach for the door knob and opened my door.

There was an eerie feel in the air. I looked over towards the pair of beds in the room. John was standing in front of the window. Only his silhouette was visible. The light shining through the window was bright and blinding. John was bobbing up and down, like he was holding something and playing with it. “John?” I asked slowly approaching him. He turned to face me. His gaze was down towards the doll in his-DOLL?! I glanced over towards the closet. The doors were wide open. I looked back at John. There was a warm loving smile on his face.

Three breaths.

One, John was smiling.

Two, John starting falling.

Three, John was lying in my arms as I sank to the floor.

I gulped. Yet again, the doll in John’s arms seemed very different. Those buttons it had for eyes seemed to be glaring at me. Its face paint was partly messed up, making it borderline scary. I gulped looking at my phone and searched for Jade’s number…

Sollux hands John a ginger ale as he sits on the floor next to him. When John finally woke up, the first thing he needed was a trash can and then something else to ease the pounding in his head. I rubbed his back as he would periodically throw up. After I called Jade, it seemed no more than five seconds before Jade was kicking in my door and standing over me. Right now Terezi had her out in the hall to trying to calm her down. Once John calmed down enough, to where he could speak without bile falling out of his mouth, Jade was allowed back into the room. She instantly took my spot on the floor.

“John… what happened?” She asked sweetly patting his back.

“I…” He coughed. “Something weird…”

“We can see that, Fuckass.” I grumbled crossing my arms.

John took a swing of the soda. “It’s been weird all day.” He started. “Not long after you left, Karkat, I stated feeling like I was being watched and followed all day. Then, after eating lunch, I got a really weird phone call…” He stopped and just stared down at the ground.

“Who called?” Terezi asked.

“… Strider…” Confused, I looked at Sollux, who looked at Jade, then Terezi, and back at me. None of us _ever_ gave those creepy twins our phone numbers. How the hell could Strider ever contact John? Was he some sort of strange stalker?

“What did that low life want?” Sollux practically sneered through his teeth.

John shook his head. “He said… he said that he had… feelings for me…” I raised an eyebrow. “He called and started going on about how much he liked me, but just didn’t know how to tell me in person. I told him that I was flattered, but I liked someone else and couldn’t return his feelings. I’m not sure how he really took it, he just said ‘oh’ and that he just wanted me to know.” Defiantly weird. John never talked to Dave, and Dave never seemed to show any interest in John either. So for Dave to suddenly make a move like that, it was defiantly weird. “But then it really got weird.”

“How so?” Terezi asked sitting down on the spare bed.

“Dave asked me to put ‘Gamzee’ on the phone. It took me a minute to figure put it was his doll. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, so I just played along. I said ‘sure, but the doll was up stairs, in Karkat’s room’. ‘Gamzee… is **not a _fucking doll!_** ’ He yelled. I jumped back a bit before apologizing. He then demanded I put Gamzee on the phone. I figured I’d just do what he asked and I came up to get the thing. Took me a while to find it, without going through all your personal stuff, and then I opened the closet. I figured Dave would want proof it was his doll, so I took it down, giving it a squeeze so it’d honk, and then placed it on the bed next to my phone. Dave actually talked with it for some time before calling out for me again. I reached for my phone and when I placed it to my ear… I don’t even know. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on Karkat’s lap needing to puke.”

We all turned our heads to look at the lifeless object now sitting in the corner. It didn’t move, nor could it, but if it could, and if it did, I’m sure the damn thing would be smiling with a wide sharp-toothed grin…

Jade got a call a few days later. Kanaya was feeling well enough to want to see everyone, so we all took a trip up to the hospital only a few minutes up the road. It would be nice to her. It’s felt like forever ago since the last time anyone saw her. Kanaya was quite the character. At first look, she seems like any other charming young lady, but piss her off in anyway and you’ll regret it. Kanaya was beautiful, young woman. She was strong willed and never let anything put her down. She was the star of the track team and fairly popular. Why she hung out with us I still don’t understand. But when we walked into her room, I saw a completely different person. Kanaya looked withered, broken, and beaten. Like she had given up on the world and was just waiting for death. She didn’t seem like herself. No—she wasn’t herself. We all gathered around her, giving hugs and praise. She smiled at us, but it seemed more like a mask than anything. We all asked how she was doing and feeling and she answered, like she was her old self, but it just seemed… off. Every now and then, Kanaya would glance at me, and then quickly look away when I caught her. It was unsettling.

After a while, everyone decided they wanted food. So Jade, Terezi, and Sollux decided to treat Kanaya with something outside of the hospital. It was deathly silent after they left. The clock hanging on the wall seemed very loud, like it was plugged into an amp and set on full blast. It didn’t last long though.

“Tell me Karkat…” I looked up at Kanaya. “Has there been… any strange occurrences happening lately?”

John and I look at each other. He sinks into his scarf as he grips his arms tightly leaning against the wall. “Define ‘strange’.” I asked raising any eyebrow.

“Like… anything unusual and possibly… involving clowns?” John cringed and shut his eyes sinking deeper into himself. I turned from him and looked back at Kanaya.

“Well, aside from John being pranked by a couple of douche bags and weird phone call from Strider, not really. Why?”

She sighed. “When was John ‘pranked’? The same night I was attacked?” I nodded. She turned over towards John with a very sympathetic look before looking back at me with all seriousness in her face. “Listen, I know this is going to sounds impossible, but that was **no** prank if whatever I saw was the same thing John saw.”

I tensed up. “What did you see?”

“…” She was silent for a few minute, thinking over her words. “I thought I heard something that night, something peculiar. I was getting ready to go out for a run anyway, so I figured I’d investigate. I went down into the lobby to see where those infuriated honks were coming from. I didn’t see anybody, nor did I expect to. So I went back up to my room to get a few things before going out on my run. But when I turned around…” She covered her mouth with her hand as she closed her eyes recalling horrible memories. A few tears fell. She didn’t have to explain.

“You don’t have to go into detail…” She nodded.

“Anyway, _it_ was there; leathery skin, thin, disturbing, and just… all around awful! I tried getting away from it—but I couldn’t! After I was cornered… The next thing I knew, I was waking up here…” She trailed off.

“Was that when you were attacked? When you were cornered?” I already knew the answer, but I just need to hear it from her. She nodded. I looked over at John. He looked like he was about to be sick. His face matched what it looked like _that_ night. I swallowed. “Have… just by chance for whatever reason, have LaLonde or Strider contacted you?”

Do I honestly have to say that Kanaya froze or went wide-eyed? Do I honestly have to?!

Anyway, she reached over to the nightstand where her phone was charging. She hit a few buttons before handing her phone out to me. “Press ‘send’.” She whispered. I took her phone and pushed the button to listen. The message was skin crawling. Rose’s was giggling and speaking in a chilling manor, as if she had reverted back to her childhood years.

“ _Hey Kanaya~! *giggle* I see Gamzee decided to play with you. He’s such a funny clown when he wants to be. He must really like you to just pounce on you like that. But then again, he did seem rather mad when he was chasing after you… Anyway, I was wondering how you were doing… and if, when you get out of the hospital, if you would you want to go out on a date sometime? It could be really fun, and… we could get to know each other better… anyway~! I’ll see you in a couple of days and we can talk then, ok? Bye~!_ ”

I looked at the phone after the message ended. What the fuck had I just listened to?!

I looked over at John. First him with Dave and now Kanaya with Rose. I didn’t think that it was possible for those two could get any creepier…

It was like and god send when Sollux and the girls came back with food. The silence and hair raising feeling cast among us had grown ear piercingly strong and irritating, so having some useless chatter and meaningless talk and gossip along with the clatter of eating utensils was a nice change…

That night, when we got back to school and back to our respective dorms, Sollux and I got ready for bed. I snuggled up close to him, not because the room was cold, but I felt really weird, as if I was being watched, and being next him felt safe. It was a while before I fell asleep…

Then the next thing I knew, I was being woken up by Sollux tightly pinning my arms down and kissing me. When I opened my eyes, I gasped for air. Tears swelled up in my eyes and I just wrapped my arms around his neck as he pulled me into his lap. I sat there crying for a while as Sollux stroked my hair and rocked me lightly back and forth. When I did catch my breath and started to calm down, Sollux wiped my eyes holding my face. “What’sth wrong?”

I sniffled and wiped my eye. “A… *hiccup* really bad dream…”

“What wasth it about?”

It was weird that’s for sure. I was standing there, just standing there, in front of a large window in what seemed to be a hospital. I was dressed in a light blue patients’ uniform just staring out the window, blindly. Then I just turned around and started walking. I came to an intersection. There, a patient, wearing matching attire to mine, was pointing towards the left, and without question, I went left. The same when I came to the second intersection, only the person was pointing right. I followed this pattern as my bare feet pattered against the cold tile. It wasn’t till about the second or third intersection that I realized I was holding something. I was holding a doll, _the_ doll actually. I don’t know why I was holding it, or where it came from, but it was there just lying in my arms.

I stilled when I came to a large pair of double doors. Something told me to open the doors, but I couldn’t. The doll was resting in my arms. I looked down then and it was gone. Not thinking much of it, I reached up and opened the doors to a large empty room, or at least it was till I reached the center. As I stood there facing another window allowing the moon light to just glow around me, five people appeared. They weren’t patients, not like me and the others. They were just normal, everyday people with their clothes stained in blood.

Kanaya…

John…

Jade…

Terezi...

And Sollux…

They were quiet and just looking at me. Light smiles rested on their faces and I smiled back, especially when Sollux was stepping out in front of me. But the closer he got, the sicker I felt. All the smiles faded. Sollux stopped just a short reach from me and a smile twitch across his lips before he collapsed right into my arms. Something wet soaked into the fabric I was wearing and I screamed. I fell to my knees and held Sollux’s lifeless body in front of me. His throat was slashed and pouring out blood. I screamed his name and looked out to all of our other friends, begging for their help. Pleading for them to do _something_. No one did anything. They all stood perfectly still.

Tears poured down me face as a maniacal laugh echoed out behind me. Everything went still for a moment before something hit me knocking me clear across the room. I looked up from the ground as one-by-one my friends were all ripped to shreds. It was a futile attempt, but I rushed to my feet to try and save my friends, but something was holding me back. A group of men in white coats held me back into a chair as straps were placed around my arms and legs. I shouted at them to let me go, that I needed to help my friends, but none of them listened. I screamed again, this time saying I wasn’t the one responsible, that I didn’t kill them, that I was the evil clown that did it! Again, my cries fell on deaf ears. Something was injected into my arm and I started to feel fuzzy. My eyelids felt heavy and my vision blurry. The only thing I could see clearly was a pair of bright, glowing orange eyes and sharp, plague-stained teeth grinning at me…

The next day… it was hell. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say I was running on maybe two, three hours of sleep. After waking up from that god awful nightmare I could not get back to sleep, nor did I want to. It all just seemed so real. The images just played themselves again and again and again in my mind, making it really fucking hard to focus on the work I was failing to distract myself with. I just gave up and packed my things and left the study tree to head back to my room; I stopped outside the door. Sollux was talking to someone. I leaned my ear against the door. Sollux was throwing around a bunch of psychological terms meaning he was talking to his dad, Ψiioniic.

Ok, so just to clear things out, Ψiioniic is cool as all fuck. He’s a well-respected psychologist who works at a mental hospital and is one hell of a cool dad. In the time I’ve known him, he stops at nothing to try and embarrass Sollux in front of me. It’s really funny, but the conversation between father and son seemed anything but. Sollux aspired to be like his father and really hoped to work with him, maybe even open a practice together. So, whenever the two of us had a problem we would go to him to figure it out if we couldn’t figure it out. Sollux was probably talking to him about that dream. I sighed turning the nob and walked inside. Sollux looked over and smiled towards me warmly and returned to the conversation with his father. I placed my stuff on the spare bed and plop down. God I was tired. Sollux sits down next to my head brushing his hand across my hair. “Hey, Dad wantsth to know if you want to talk with him.”

I shrugged reaching out my hand. A professional opinion would be nice. Sollux handed me his phone and I greeted Ψiioniic tiredly. “Hello…”

“Good afternoon Karkat. It’sth niceth to hear from you. How long hasth it been?” Lisps ran deep in the Captor family. Sollux’s cousin Mituna was the worst by far and his autism doesn’t help.

I rolled over onto my back and rested my head on Sollux’s leg. “I have no fucking clue… a while I guess.”

“You sthound asth chipper asth ever.” He chuckles. “Stho tell me. What’sth been going on?” After a very long recap of everything that has happened, Ψiioniic gave me his very professional opinion. “Well… Honestly, it sthoundsth like typical collage pranksth taken way too stheriousthly, and the stressth form the pranksth isth causthing you to have nightmaresth adding more stressth, causthing lack of sleep and of coursthe fatigue.”

“Hmmm…” I grumbled.

“I wouldn’t put too much thought into it or worry too much about it. Thesthe two… ‘twinsth’ are probably trying to get a risthe out of you and pulling out all the stopsth to get it.” It really made sense, not just because I was on the verge of falling asleep, but because I had convinced myself a while ago that Dave and Rose were Sadists.

“Alright. Look, I don’t know about your son, but I’m pretty tired and I think I’m going to try and sleep. I’ll talk to you some time soon.”

“Alright, Karkat.” I could just see him smiling like the beaming sun. “I’ll let you go. Try and behave yoursthelf. I don’t want to have to give Porrim a call.”

“Can we not?” He laughed. “Alright. Bye Ψiioniic.” I handed the phone back up to Sollux. He continued to his conversation briefly as he stroked the hair out of my face before he said his goodbyes and hung up.

He placed his phone on the night stand before looking down at me. “Feel better?” He asked leaning down.

“A bit.” His lips met mine. It was light and innocent and honestly, just what I needed for my pounding headache…

—

“Hey Karkat… Where’s Sollux?” I looked over at the moron on the opposite side of the couch.

“Upstairs probably sleeping. Where the fuck do you think he’d be?” It was quiet between us as I turned my attention back to the shitty movie I picked for us to watch. Saturdays were typically mine and John’s bad movie nights. From cheesy sitcoms, to really bad romcoms, John and I would make popcorn and have a few bottles of soda and sit down and watch the bullshit that was a shitty movie. But this time was kinda different.

John seemed rather distant, which wasn’t like him. Normally, we argue about what movie to watch, and then complain about how bad the movie is, which of course ends with us both passing out of the couch with droll drying on our faces. But this… this time was strange. John didn’t fight about the movie. He just placed down a bowl of popcorn and two bottles of soda and sat down on the sofa. Quietly. When I presented the two movies for debate, he just pointed to the one in my left hand. I didn’t care about the movie choice really, so I just put it in. And here we were, a few hours later, and John was asking me about Sollux’s location.

A small smile crept on his lips as he turned towards me. “Good.” He said in a low tone. He stood up and stepped right in front of me.

“Egbert, what are you-!” John cupped my face and leaned down kissing me. Every hair on my being stood up on end. I’m sure the expression on my face was somewhere between anger, surprise, and confusion. My heart was racing and my face was burning hot. I wasn’t sure what do, or what was really going on for that matter. It was weird and I didn’t like it. In a lapse of shitty judgment, I pushed John off of me and over the coffee table onto his back, knocking over the popcorn and soda. “EGBERT! WHAT-THE-FUCK?!” I shouted with a blush burning on my face.

John groaned as his ass found its way back onto the floor and he rubbed his head and the sore spot on his back. “What… what just happened?” He grumbled.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘WHAT JUST HAPPENED’?!” I panted as I stood up from the sofa practically jumping onto the coffee table.

John sat up shushing me. “Karkat! Do you want to wake up the whole dorm!” He whispered panicking. “I’m sure they can here you in the girls’ west dorm!”

I couldn’t believe this moron. Right after he kissed me-forced himself on me rather-he’s going to pretend that it didn’t happen?! Then I thought of something. The way John spoke… the look in his eyes… did he just simply have an episode… like before? A very uneasy feeling began to settle in my stomach. I looked around the lobby. It appeared to be a lot darker and ten times colder than just a few minutes ago. I clutched my arms and walked over to help John up.

“Are you feeling ok?” I asked.

He looked unsure. John’s skin felt cold and his complexion looked pale. “Aside from this burse that I am sure is going to be on my back, I think I’m going to be ok.” Something in my stomach doubted that.

Needless to say, that ended our movie night; we cleaned up our mess and turned off the movie before heading off to bed. Sleep would be really nice, especially with midterms near…

Midterms came (they were murder) and they went. I spent all of my extra time and energy trying to avoid John with every ounce of being I had. I couldn’t face him. I just couldn’t. I wasn’t sure what was going through that fat head of his! Did he like me; was he on some kind of drug; I had no clue. But my alluding couldn’t last forever. Kanaya had been released from the hospital a few days prior and was staying home before coming back to school and getting bombarded with over baring questions and other stupid shit from gossip whores.

When Kanaya got back to campus, we all decided (by all, I mean John, Terezi, and Jade) to go out and celebrate at our favorite campus Asian restaurant. So fancy clothes on and ready, we all met up and grabbed a table. Kanaya seemed to be her regular and charming self, which was nice. We all chatted amongst ourselves and all seemed to have a good time, but something… something felt really off. I can’t pin point what it was, but you know that really bad feeling of nausea and light headedness you get when something bad is about to happen? Something really bad? That’s how I felt. Despite the very chipper happiness in the air, everything felt wrong and gloomy. Like you could see gray clouds over and behind everyone’s head.

I’m not sure if it was the alcohol or food or what, but either way, I had to excuse myself from the tale to go throw up. The trip to the bathroom wasn’t easy. The room wouldn’t stop fucking spinning. I’m amazed I got to the bathroom in time to lose all the bile in my stomach. Fucking… God… After that episode, I exited the bathroom stall, walked over to the sink, and proceeded to wash out my mouth and hands. I was trying to find some excuse to just go back to my room and try to sleep without Sollux bailing too when the stall door next to the one I was in opened. How did I not notice that he was in there?

Dave Strider exited the stall, in a black suit, sunglasses perched on his nose, and umbrella spinning around his wrist. Jegus fuck-where did he come from?! AS if listening to some sort of swing music, Dave danced his way towards me. “Gamzee’s disappointed, Karkat.” He said side stepping to his jazz or some shit like that with a weird smirk on his face. “Strike one is tonight. Get all five and you’re out~!” He sang as he waved his umbrella as if it were a baseball bat with a dumb smile on his face.

What the fuck was he going on about? “What?” I cocked an eyebrow, then sighed and shook my head. I didn’t feel like dealing with riddles. “You know what, never mind. When the fuck is LaLonde coming to get her damn doll?”

Dave only smiled as he twirled his umbrella like a cane and made his way to the bathroom door. “Man, Kanaya really does look radiant tonight. Her skin almost glows in the moonlight. So beautiful and flawless~!” The song like sigh I received as he exited the bathroom was the only answer I was getting. Never the less I growled and followed him to demand that he take the fucking thing back, but when I reentered the dining room Dave was nowhere to be found. There was only the clatter of utensils against dishes and idle chatter. Very confused, I slipped back to table.

“Karkat, you were gone a long while, is everything alright?” Kanaya asked placing down her noodles.

“It’s nothing.” I sat down in front of the plate of the weird fishy stuff I ordered. I didn’t want to press the issue, but Sollux being Sollux-

“Are you sthure? You don’t look stho good.” He rested a hand on my back.

I nodded. “Yeah. I just ran into Strider in the bathroom.” Silence. “Look, Kanaya, it’s your first night back, don’t let me ruin it. Let’s just eat and forget about it.” Well shit. I couldn’t leave now, and I was stuck poking at food that was going cold.

Sollux noticed and nudged my arm. “Are you sthure you’re-”

“Sollux, I just threw up.” I whispered. “I’m not really keen on eating right now. I’ll just take it to go.” And that was that. We all did our best to enjoy dinner, despite the awkwardness…

After dinner, we went to a movie. Some romantic shit that Kanaya wanted to see was playing. So we were sitting in the theater when I decided I wanted snacks. Kanaya tagged along and soon we were waiting in line and it started. “Karkat… what did Dave want when you ran into him?” Kanaya asked holding her hands close to her abdomen and looking down at her ballet flats. Her concern was mutual and kind.

“I honestly have no clue. Why?”

She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “I know this is going to sound strange and rather silly, but… have you been experiencing anything weird lately? Like something is watching you?”

“No… why?”

She paused again, turning her head slightly as she placed her hand on her chin thinking. “After I got home, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being watched, like something was looming over me. Even when I knew no one was around, I couldn’t help but feel that something was just _there_ … waiting.”

“Waiting? As in to strike?”

“I honestly don’t know…” She whispered. “But I keep having nightmares for being attacked… along with other things…” She clutched her arms as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shake something off while shaking her head.

I rested a hand on her shoulder. “Kanaya, please. Just stop.” She looked at me. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, so how about we just get our snacks and enjoy the movie?” That foreboding feeling started to sink back into my stomach and-

“Karkat? Are you-?” Kanaya didn’t get to finish. I had to rush over to the bathroom and repeat my previous actions from the restaurant. Kanaya patiently waited outside the door.

When I excited, she offered me some gum from her small purse. “Karkat, are you feeling ok?” Her cooing voice reminded me a lot like my older brother’s girlfriend, very motherly, and now was the perfect time to try and skip out on tonight and go back to my room. But Kanaya wouldn’t let me. She insisted that I tough everything out. She bought me a ginger ale and we returned to the movie. I guess she was trying to help ease the stress I was feeling by dragging me back to the movie and telling me to behave with a wink. I eventually got bored, and Sollux must have too, because I don’t remember anything happening in the movie after Kanaya and I returned to our seats aside from a really cheesy make out session…

It was nice to be in bed again. Showered, in a really comfy pair of pajama pants, and snuggling up next to your nice and loving boyfriend! Ok, that was total bullshit, but I was showered and in a comfy pair of pajama pants. We weren’t snuggling -not yet anyway- because my mouth was kinda busy-that’s **all** I’m saying on the matter. When we did get to snuggling, I felt like lead and just sank into Sollux’s arms as we drifted off to sleep. It just didn’t last long…

At some ungodly hour of the night, my phone started ringing. Half asleep, I wiggle my way out of Sollux’s arms as he groaned turning onto his opposite side facing the wall to get my phone. I rubbed my eyes seeing it was Kanaya. Why the fuck would she be calling me at this hour?

I tapped the screen answering my phone. “Kanaya… *yawn* do you have any idea what time it is?”

…

Silence. Then-

I practically threw my phone across the room as a blood curtailing screen rang through my ears. Sollux’s jolted up clutching his chest. We listened as my phone sat on the bed with screaming, crashes, and what sounded like splotches of something rang through the speaker…

Then it all went silent.

Sollux and I were stilled. We could hear each other’s hearts beat and slow breath… then…

*honk*

The line went dead. I looked at my phone before looking at Sollux. I didn’t spend another second sitting there willing to think. I don’t know what came over me, but I just had to run! I **had** to see Kanaya! I had to know that she was ok! That call was no mere prank! Something _was_ wrong! The cool air hit me as I exited my dorm and rushed over towards Kanaya’s room. I rushed throw the lobby and up the stairs to her room. I swallowed hard as I turned the knob to her door, hoping that she was just inside and some sick fuck got a hold of her phone; but, her room was empty. Her clothes from that evening were lying on her bed. She must have gone for a jog or something, knowing her. Following that thought I rushed out of her room and headed down the path. Something, I’m not sure what, but something was drawing me towards the gym. The door was swinging wide open. The window was broken. I gulped as I stepped into the darkness.

The entrance hall was pitched black and the air was cold… colder than the outside air against my bare skin. I inched my way inside, occasionally hitting my foot on something, till I reached a door leading onto the court. And if I knew… what I was going to see, I would have never opened that door…

…

“KANAYA!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is this so loooooooong? And it's only going to seem to get longer. Anyway, hope you guys like it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok. I am going to finish this thing. just had to deal with final year of high school, home drama, and bullshit. but I swear I am going to finish this thing. I am sorry to everyone...

A week later, Kanaya was put to rest. We, now a group of only five, all attended. It was a very sad moment. The old trees dropped their leave in the wind as if they too were weeping. The only question any of us could ask that day was ‘why’. It wasn’t fair! Kanaya had everything going for her! She was young. She was beautiful! God fucking **dammit!** All she wanted to do was run in the Olympics and be a mother! What was soo wrong with that?!

After the funeral, like three days or so, we returned to school. Things were different now. Soon after finding her, Sollux pulled me out of the gym while Terezi, who I guess heard me from earlier, called the police. I can’t tell you what happened, who said what, who did what, or whatever. All I can say is that Kanaya was gone. She left us in a black body bag. I was questioned; who was I; what was I doing there; how did I know her? At some point, Sollux had to take over for me, as I was passed over to Terezi, who just hugged me tightly as my shoulders shook. The officer let us go after talking to Sollux. I was dragged away from the scene and over towards Terezi’s dorm…

After we got back to school, the school was kind enough to give us a week to grieve. Sollux and I spent some of that time off campus between his dad’s and my brother’s house. But when we had to come back, we heard some rather weird stories. I spend my first day back at the Juice Bar, where Terezi worked part time, with Jade. Terezi made us some smoothies on the house. Jade and I were the closets to Kanaya, so we felt the worst. Despite Terezi’s promise of the smoothies’ powers to help us relax, it did very little, at least for me. And then Terezi went on to explain how weird John had been acting lately.

“Whenever I try to talk to him, he just mumbles and stares off into space. It’s being getting really annoying.”

“Is that why he wanted to talk to Sollux?” I asked.

“Not really.” Jade answered. “We kinda forced him to. He needs to talk to someone. We get that he’s grieving, we all are, but John… just hasn’t been John.”

At first they just chucked it up to the stress and grief, but after a few days, it just got very, very unsettling. I hadn’t noticed it the day I came back, but when it came to cheesy movie night, something was defiantly… you fucking get it. It was off.

The movie was playing but the silence was clear. I tried to lighten the mood with little snippets of laughing and a crude comment every once in a while, but I got nothing in response. Just a sad boy withdrawn into himself. It was very… sad. I sighed turning off the movie. “Ok, John, what is it?” He just shook his head. “Come on. You have to confide in someone, and we’ve known each other since third grade. We should be able to talk about anything.” He finally looked at me with really sad, hopeless eyes. I dropped my shoulders shifting to take John into a hug and just let him cry it out. John just sat there crying for a few minutes, a few tears even coming to my eyes.

A little bit later, we decided to just to call it a night. John and I cleaned up and headed for our rooms. I left John at his door before heading to mine. Sollux was kinda surprised to see me back so early. He peeked up from his book as I sat down on his lap grabbing my phone. “Movie night not panning out?”

“No. John’s still upset.” I searched for my phone to call me favorite PHD’s number. “It’s really pissing me off.”

“And you think Dad can help?” Sollux asked resting his head on my shoulder as he hugged my waist.

“I have no idea. But it’s worth a shot.”

One ring.

Two ring.

Three ring.

Four—

“*yawn* Good evening Karkat.” Ψiioniic yawned. “What bringsth you to call me at thisth lovely hour?”

“Ten o’clock is not that late. Anyway, this is kinda important. You know my friend John right?”

“Heard of him; I don’t know him persthonally.” Ψiioniic yawned.

“Yeah, he’s been acting really—exceptionally weird lately. I’m not sure what it is, but something is really off about him. If there is one thing John loves, it’s shitty movie night, and he’s been dead about that for a while now.”

Ψiioniic yawn again. “Look, Karkat, in view of the cithrcumstancethsth, he’sth probably justh acting out in a way. Unlessth I’m there, I can’t really be of much help I’m afraid.”

I sighed. “I understand. I’m just worried about him. He’s my best friend and I want the best for him is all.”

“For right now, Karkat, justh be there for him. He’ll come to at sthome point.”

“Alright. Thanks… so how are your patients?”

“Don’t get me stharted!” Even though I didn’t really get the answers I wanted, I guess I was satisfied with talking to Ψiioniic. I’d have to drag John over to him at some point so they could talk when he was feeling a little better…

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet, but I really don’t care for clowns, and when you have funky, weird dreams about them doing weird things involving sparkles and fizzy shit, you don’t sleep so well. The next morning when I woke up, I had a really bad headache—kinda like the kind you get with a hangover or downing way too much sugar. There was also the really bad taste in my mouth; it was like I had guzzled down a shit tone of fizzy Skittle drinks. I rolled over finding Sollux absent from bed. Groaning, I dragged my way to the edge of the bed finding Sollux on the floor. How odd. There were dozens of empty soda bottles and packs of sugar candy everywhere. Sollux and I don’t really drink soda or eat candy so we really don’t just have this shit lying around, and I don’t remember anyone coming in last night and partying it up in here either… the **fuck** happened?

As ever loving as I could be, I flung a pillow down at my half naked partner making him grown in displeasure. Sollux sat up, his hair a complete mess and his eyes nearly blood shot. He looked around for a moment, taking in the mess. “The fuck happened lasth night?”

“Damned if I know.” I said pushing myself up, and just in time to feel a wave of nausea surge up my throat. I couldn’t get to the trash can quick enough. What ever happened that night, my stomach did not like it. I honestly took puking rainbows to a literal level.

When my stomach was finally happy to be rid of the sugary acid, Sollux and I decided a shower would be great. Warm water, a fresh towel, and clean clothes later, Sollux and I had a hell of a time cleaning up the mysterious mess. We were fairly pissed about it and figured that someone decided that an early Halloween prank would be great and that our current emotional state would be the best time to do it… yeah. We were pissed. But on the plus side, there was a party in our dorm that night.

Like any other college student, I enjoyed parties, mostly because I could get away with drinking and acting stupid. The party was good for all of us in a sense. It gave us a break from what was going on and let us start to move on with our lives. Terezi and Sollux, not being really fond of alcohol, just sat back in a corner with some non-drinkers just hanging out. Jade and I, despite being underage, were fairly tipsy… Ok, Jade was tipsy, I was drunk, and I didn’t care. We were having fun while John was being boring and sitting at the window just sipping at the drink in the red cup he had.

Music blasting and party thumping, I figured John was not allowed to be sad or boring. Giggling like a complete asshole, I plopped down next to. “You know… you know Egbert… you should really come out and dance with me and Jade. We’re having… so much fun!”

John shrugged. “Nah… you two have fun. I’d only be a buzz kill.”

I just bursted out laughing. “Buzz kill? Like you could make me sober right now!”

John chuckled lightly. “Just have fun, Karkat.”

“Alright, your loss.” I rejoined Jade on the established dance floor.

A little after Jade wonder off to talk to some guy, I made my way over to Sollux straddling his lap and proceeding with a fairly sloppy make out. Not long after he suggested that we go upstairs and go bed, but I said no and that I’d meet him up there. He had his concerns, but just let it be. He had class in the morning and needed some sleep. I ‘walked’ him over to the stairs giving him a kiss before heading back to the party. Jade was back from talking to that one guy and we just got wasted. John had finally decided to not be lame at some point and joined us. It’s not really clear what happened later on, but I know there were music, booze, and a whole bunch of random shit. At some random point, it all started to blur together.

I remember it was late and I was following someone back to a room. I remembered falling back onto something soft and kissing someone. I assumed it was Sollux, who came down to get me, so I didn’t fight it and just went along with it. The only thing I really found weird was that I wasn’t the one being penetrated, but it being the other way around. Sollux and I only really did it that way once, and that was just a trial and error kind of thing. But hey—I wasn’t complaining. It felt nice to do something different. One thing kinda blurred into another, but somewhere between a blowjob and like… fucking orgasm number three, I passed out. The last thing I remember was feeling something heavy lying on my chest while something  else was… you get the idea—it fucking weird drunk sex.

When I woke up the next more, talk about the headache from hell. Fucking hangovers. Rubbing my head I opened my eyes. Something was very wrong. First, the walls of the room were powder blue; my room’s walls are orange. Second, there was dark brown hair in my face; Sollux’s hair was light brown. Trying to pull through the pounding in my head I sat up, forcing whoever off of me as I tried to balance on my feet looking for my pants while everything came into a better focus.

My fucking god!

…

What had I done?!

Finding my pants was the least of my worries. Finding a trashcan was the next. How anyone was able to sleep through that noise was beyond me. After relieving my stomach, I turned around squinting my eyes in the light. Slowly, the realization of my surrounding came into focus. I was in John’s room. I was in John’s fucking room! I turned looking back at the bed. John was just lying there.

“John?”

I stepped over to him, calling out his name trying to wake him up. I shook his shoulders and his was ice cold. He wasn’t breathing. He didn’t react in any way to me calling him. My breath started to get shallow and my heart started pounding louder than my headache. I gulped and rolled John onto his back and just about lost it. His neck was completely black with bruises in the shape of hands. My heart sank into my stomach and I completely lost my footing falling back and hitting my head on John’s second bed… I just wanted someone to tell me this was all one fucked up dream…

…

Terezi draped a blanket over my shaking shoulders. She hugged me tightly rubbing my arms as tears just stained my face. Sollux was in the corner consulting a very hysteric Jade. With everything taped off, the police carried John’s body out of the dorm. Thank god for Terezi and her trashcan; this hangover was a real bitch.

A detective was called in with this case. Two murders at one school just a few weeks apart wasn’t something to take lightly. He sat down quietly across from me in the lounge. He clears his throat lightly before addressing me. “Mr. Vantas. I hate that we have to meet each other under these circumstances.”

I looked up at him dully. No doubt my eyes were all red and puffy matching my overall shitty appearance. “It really is.” I choked.

“How are you feeling?” He asked in a gentle voice.

“Like a backstabbing, cheating cunt.” Terezi patted my head trying to be supportive as I wiped my eyes.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He pulled out a small note pad and pen from his suit jacket. “Can you recall anything from last night?”

I shrugged. “I remember there being a party, getting drunk, and then bits and pieces of fucking my best friend.”

“Karkat!” Terezi snapped. “I know you feel bad, but you need to put those feelings aside for right now. This is really serious.”

“Alright.” I sniffled. “All I know is party, drunk, sex. That’s really it.”

The detective nodded jotting down a few notes. “Were you aware that you were committing sexual acts with Mr. Egbert?” I shook my head. I thought it was Sollux the whole time. “I see. Mr. Vantas, how are you currently feeling? Light headed, dizzy, headache, nauseated? Any of that?” I nodded. All of that kinda summed up everything at the moment. The detective waved over one of the officers who handed him a plastic bag with a small bottle in it. “Do you know what this is?”

“Is that—how the hell did John get date rape?!” The room went silent at Terezi’s shrill voice. My eyes just went wide as I stared down the little black bottle. That fucking asshole. If it wasn’t for the seriousness of the situation, I would have joked that it was a good thing John was dead, otherwise I would have strangled him. Talk about violation! Not to mention fucking betrayal! I trusted John. I trusted him with everything!

“Don’t you have any ideas?” We shook our heads. “Either way, we can’t be sure of anything without a test. Mr. Vantas, if you would kindly submit a drug test, it may help with this investigation. There is no doubt that these crimes between Miss Maryam and Mr. Egbert are connected.” Terezi and I just looked at each other.

“I’ll go get my keys.” She said sliding off the couch. I bit my lip as the detective and Terezi left me on the couch. Not long after I walked up to my room to get dressed so Terezi and I could head down towards the station. I’m honestly not sure what hurt more: the loss of my best friend, or Sollux just flat out ignoring me when I clearly needed him…

The drug test was simple and came back positive. The Detective wanted to take me to the hospital, but since I don’t get along too well with doctors in lab coats holding needles, I had to refuse. I’d just let my system deal with the drug. Besides, I had another reason not to go. Sollux wasn’t answering any of mine or Terezi’s attempt at contact. It had me really worried.

We got back from the station. The tension was obvious. Terezi offered to go with me to talk to Sollux but I knew she couldn’t. I really had to do this alone. Besides, Jade really needed her help more than I did. She hugged me wishing me luck and with the weight of guilt just lounging on my shoulders, it was a long and painful walk back to my room. The lobby felt very odd for some reason as I walked through it. Goosebumps crawled their way up my arms as I approached John’s room. The air was thick and heavy, practically suffocating. I gulped as I jotted up the stairs to my room. I’m not sure what was thicker: the air downstairs, or the air in that room. Sollux was sitting at his desk with his text book and laptop, paying no attention to my entry. I walked over and sat down on the spare bed trying to think of something— _anything_ —that could prove to Sollux that last night was a total accident and wasn’t supposed to happen; but, I was at a loss of words.

What the fuck could I _possibly_ say to ease any kind of pain that he was feeling? I fucking cheated on him! And with my best friend for that matter! The more I thought about it, the more it hurt. Tears stung my eyes and fell down my face. I just let it happen. Why bother hiding anything at this point? The wheels on the chair shifted against the carpet and the seat squeaked as weight was lifted off of it. I pulled myself into a tighter ball, not bothering to even look at him. What was the point? He was furious. I didn’t have to see his face to know that.

He paced the space between the beds before sighing. “I justh don’t know, Karkat. I justh don’t know…” I’m pretty sure he pinched the bridge of his nose. “What the fuck were you thinking?! How could you do that to me?! And with John of all people?!”

“Sollux… I’m… I’m so sorry…”

“Of coursthe you are. Lasth night wasth a misthake. You were justh stho drunk you had no control-”

“That’s not it!”

“Of coursthe it isthn’t. Because you would never do that.” His face, his expression, his body language—it was all dull. And it was pissing me off.

“Of course I wouldn't!” I shouted. “Do honestly think I would willingly cheat you? How could that possibly enter your that absurd brain of yours?”

He shook his head smirking at himself. “Are you honestly _that_ blind? Sthince you failed to noticeth—let me spell it out for you. John Egbert wasth in love with you, Karkat.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Like a sthchool girl. Why do you think I never liked him? From the night that we met, he’sth tried—believe me—he’sth tried to stheal you from me. Justh little thingsth to get your attention.”

“That can’t be true. John was just my friend.” My mouth twitched up in disbelief. “He was happy that you and I were together. _He_ was the one that was there when I first started thinking about dating you. _He was_ the one that pushed me to ask you out! Never once has John done **anything** to hurt our relationship!”

“Expect for lasth night.” Sollux crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know about you, but when I encourage my friendsth to pursthue relationshipsth and when I’m happy for them, I don’t drug them when they’re completely out of it. If John wasth sthimply your ‘besth friend’, why did he take advantage of your incompetenceth and drug you? That doesn’t sthound like a friend to me.”

I had to admit, he had me there. I guess I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe John was capable of rape. I didn’t want to believe that my best friend was dead. The one person I could probably use more than anyone right now was dead… The realization hit worse than a brick. I just curled into an even tighter ball—as tight as physically possible. I just wanted it all to just be one hell of a nightmare. Just one bad, really bad nightmare. The last thing the two ever did together was the worst possible thing to do… Just thinking about it made me think about how I found him. His body was pale and just void of everything. And then there were those hands marks on his neck-

Hand marks?

I unwound form my ball and looked at my hands. I couldn’t have possibly...?

I began shaking and tears just streamed down my face. I couldn’t have. I honestly couldn’t have. There was not fucking way! I couldn’t have! I just couldn’t have! There was no fucking-!

A sharp sting spread across my face. I rested my hand and looked at Sollux who squatted down to a more eye level with me. “Karkat, what isth it? You’re really shaking?”

I have no idea how I managed to say it, let alone think, but somehow it just rolled off my tongue. “I think _I_ killed John…”

…

Saying I didn’t sleep that night was a drastic understatement. Just the idea that I was responsible for best friend’s end was **traumatizing**. I wanted to call the police and tell them—but Sollux adamantly refused. He said I was acting irrational, that the shock was just getting to me. At first I didn’t believe him; there was no explanation for those marks around his neck unless it **was** me. I know Sollux was at a lost then. All he could do was hold me while I just broke down. At some point I fell asleep only to be woken up just a few hours later with a knocking on our door. Sollux got up to answer it just letting me stay in my curled up little ball.

“Officther. Sthir.” He greeted those at the door. “What can I do for you?”

“We came to ask just a few more questions.” One of the officers said as they entered the room. “Is Mr. Vantas available?”

“He isth… but I don’t really think he’sth up for talking.”

“I’m fine.” I grumbled sitting up resting my chin on my knees.

“Right. I know you’ve been questioned already, but can you tell us about what you know involving the two deaths? Do you have any ideas about how they’re connected?”

Sollux sighed. “I honesthly can’t. Kanaya and John were close, really good friendsth.”

“Nightmares…” I mumbled.

“What?” One of the officers asked.

“John and Kanaya… they were both suffering from nightmares. When we were visiting Kanaya in the hospital, the three of us were alone. Kanaya asked if anything ‘unusual’ was going on involving clowns. The thing John saw the night Kanaya was attacked apparently looked like a clown. John wasn’t acting right since...”

“Wasthn’t that the sthame night Rosthe gave you her doll?” My attention snapped towards Sollux. I kicked off my blankets and rushed over towards the other bed. I reached for the box underneath. I’m not sure what I had expected when I saw that it was empty. We never told anyone where we hid the box or the doll for that matter, so there was no reason for it to be missing.

I can’t really explain it, but I thought I heard something. Like a faint whisper badgering me to follow it. I looked at Sollux before pushing past the officers and the dean and out the door. They followed on my heels. I stopped at John’s room and forced the door open.

There, sitting on the pillow of his bed, was that fucking doll…


End file.
